Camerata’s CoronaConcerts Set to Conquer COVID Confinement
Camerata Pacifica was at the forefront of local arts organizations in pivoting to online streaming events at the onset of enforced closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, launching weekly curated videos with live commentary way back in March. While the chamber music ensemble’s Concerts at Home series continues on Sundays on YouTube and Facebook, its musicians have been itching to get back to live performances and the kinship of the shared concert experience. So much so that even though the 2020-21 concert hall season was long ago canceled, the principal players have come up with the idea for CoronaConcerts, a series of solo concerts programs to be presented as “pop ups” when it’s safe (and legal) to do so.
The performances will be held outdoor, with venues chosen for their supportive acoustics but as yet unannounced. Mask wearing will be mandatory, and social distancing strictly observed, which will necessitate limiting attendance. Subscribers and other friends of Cam Pac will be notified seven to ten days before the events take place. Accordingly the dates aren’t yet available, but the programs are.
Cellist Ani Aznavoorian has chosen a program of music by Bach, Sheng, and Sollima, which she describes as “ranging from classic to wild and crazy, as I think we’ve all been experiencing the full spectrum of emotions these months.” Camerata Pacifica dean Warren Jones’s piano program consists of “favorite music of mine: a Mozart sonata, some Brahms short pieces, and a variety of novelties and rags by Gottschalk, Lamb, Novacek, and Joplin,” while keyboardist Gilles Vonsattel plays Bach and Mendelssohn before taking on Rzewski’s “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues,” which he terms “a truly American work of great social consciousness and implicit protest, which also happens to be a great virtuoso piece deploying a true command of the piano’s resources.”
Violinist Paul Huang has opted for Bach, Kreisler, and Corigliano, “highlighting the three most important qualities of the violin: virtuosity, charm, and its ability to move us.” Fellow violinist Kristin Lee will also play a Bach sonata, adding works by Ciupinski (“Wreck of Umbria for Violin and Electronics”) and Ysaÿe, with the centerpiece serving as representative on quarantine-induced online-only music-making as she’ll be “following the score on the laptop that is synced with electronics, playing a duet with pre-recorded sound that is manipulated to create colors, sounds, and rhythm.”
Also featured are instruments rarely heard in solo recitals, with marimba player’s Ji Hye Jung set consisting of “musical works that are new and exciting to me as a musician,” stemming from her work with composers “to find a new voice for percussion,” while also featuring music by women and minorities. “This program is a great challenge since I have not performed any of these pieces before,” she reports. Harpist Bridget Kibbey’s program, with music from Spain, Cuba, Germany, and Russia providing the template, highlights her favorite “comfort food” works, “which doesn’t mean they’re pastel in color or docile in nature but rather conjure up an immediacy of emotion. Each transcription is lent a special color and perspective on the harp – indeed, the harp morphs into an organ, a piano, a guitar.” Finally, flutist Demarre McGill engages with eight different shorter pieces, including two by Nielsen, in a rare opportunity to offer so much repertoire on a single concert.
Cam Pac plans to charge $100 for tickets (free to its Premiere Circle Donors), and prospective attendees will need to be on the ensemble’s email list to receive the alerts. Visit https://cameratapacifica.org for details and to register.
Wonders from Westmont and CAMA’s Connection
Westmont College’s Friday Night Concert series of pre-recorded performances from faculty, alumni, community members, and more, which began back on September 4, continues to offer new shows each week through the end of the academic year. Coming attractions for October include “Miniature Masterpieces”: Chamber Music from sections of the Westmont Orchestra (October 16), an orchestral sampler (October 23), and the annual Fall Choral Celebration (October 30). November brings concerts by the Jazz Ensemble, Student Composers, String Chamber Ensembles, and Vocal Chamber Ensembles and the Westmont Chamber Orchestra Concert before the Sixteenth Annual Christmas Concert arrives online, coping-with-COVID style, December 4-6. Watch the events at https://vimeo.com/showcase/westmontmusic, or visit www.westmont.edu/music/concerts for details.
Given that its mission is to book large international touring orchestras into the Granada as well as present more intimate yet still sizeable recitals at the Lobero – both of which require a lot of planning – CAMA has had to completely cancel its current 2020-21 season. But the organization is proudly promoting a series from its long-time sister organization, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has played annually in town under CAMA’s auspices for more than a century. Sound/Stage is a nine-part series of live concerts filmed over the spring and summer on stage at the Hollywood Bowl, with no audience and with the film crew and musicians masked and safely separated. The innovative adventure features a bounty of bold programming, and lots of baton work from its musical director Gustavo Dudamel. The series began on September 25 with the ultra-timely “Love in the Time of COVID” program and continues through November 30, and you can watch each new episode when it premieres on Fridays as well as all of the archived ones online at https://www.soundstage.laphil.com.
